Golden State Warriors Approved as WNBA Expansion Franchise Starting in 2025 Season
By Ramona Shelburne, ESPN Senior Writer
October 5, 2023, 11:47 AM ET
The Golden State Warriors, known as one of the most successful NBA franchises in the past decade, are set to make their mark in the WNBA. The league announced on Thursday morning that it has approved the organization as an expansion franchise, beginning in the 2025 season.
Warriors chairman Joe Lacob expressed his intentions for the team, stating, “We’re coming in here, number one, to win. Number two, we want to see this league and women’s basketball grow, and we hope to be a big part of it. We think it’s a watershed event for us to come in and commit to it in a big way. We’re going to bring all of our resources. We can put this machine to work, and we’re going to do that.”
With the Warriors ranking first in Forbes’ most recent NBA valuations at $7 billion, largely due to the success of the Chase Center in San Francisco and corporate sponsorships, Lacob plans to bring the full force of the Warriors’ business structure behind the new WNBA franchise. He believes the team will have the highest revenue among all WNBA teams and aims to contribute significantly to the growth of the league.
The Golden State Warriors’ games will be played at the state-of-the-art Chase Center, while their training facilities will be located in Oakland, where the Warriors practiced until 2019. Internal discussions will determine the team’s name, potentially to reflect the fan base across the entire Bay Area, but the possibility of the team being called the Warriors still remains.
For Joe Lacob, this new venture is a full-circle moment. He initially owned the San Jose Lasers in the now-defunct American Basketball League in 1996. Lacob’s regrets about the failure of the ABL and its inability to secure a television contract have fueled his passion for this expansion. The ABL faced fierce competition from the NBA-supported WNBA, which launched in 1997.
Despite some franchise disbandments and relocations over the past decade, the WNBA’s popularity has continued to grow. The league has been cautious about expansion since 2008, but recent calls for expansion have prompted discussions of adding a second team, possibly in Portland. However, these plans have not been finalized, according to league sources.
The Bay Area has been identified as an ideal location for expansion due to the strong existing fan base for women’s basketball, stemming from the support for Stanford and the University of California at Berkeley, as well as the Sacramento Monarchs, one of the original WNBA teams.
As preparations begin for the newly approved expansion franchise, Joe Lacob’s passion for basketball and his desire to contribute to the growth of women’s basketball will guide the Golden State Warriors’ journey into the WNBA.